Do children know what it means to 'talk posh'? as we say in gbenglish

[Caroline Bowen]

Dear Aubrey

Very young children, much younger than 8;0, code switch. I have just been
listening to two three year olds, twins 3;4, "being" the trains (Thomas the
Tank Engine and friends) talking dead common, and the Fat Controller talking
dead posh. The interesting thing is that the three year old with the
language disorder (my client) could change voices, apparently as easily as
the one with typical language development.

I don't know how relevant this is to what you are seeking, Aubrey, but two
year olds "talk down" to children they perceive as younger. I have seen two
and three year olds talk down to older children with Down Syndrome in the DS
clinic at Macquarie and at DS Association social functions. Young children
also talk in a bossy, authoritative way to dollies, teddies and pets, don't
they?

I would look in the autism/pragmatics literature, particularly the work that
has been done on teaching individuals with pragmatics issues to adopt an
appropriate "tone" and demeanour to talk to peers vs. those in authority,
etc. There is a lot of work done with children and young people with HFA,
autism, semantic pragmatic disorder in "social skills training groups" along
these lines.

I don't have any references at my fingertips, but have you talked to Gina
Conti-Ramsden? Nicola Botting?

Caroline

Caroline Bowen PhD
cbowen at ihug.com.au
Speech Language Pathologist
9 Hillcrest Road
Wentworth Falls NSW 2782
Australia

Do you know about the
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INFORMATION HERE:
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-----Original Message-----
From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org

My question is this: how early and how accurately do children learn to
detect corelations between a particular sort of speech and the exercise of
authority and power?

Aubrey Nunes,
Pigeon Post Box Ltd
52 Bonham Road
London, SW2 5HG
I:  www.pigeonpostbox.co.uk